Though Rose Lee said she had started watching TV news reports yesterday on the release of the Osama bin Laden videotape, she ultimately decided that doing so was not a good idea. Isle victims’ relatives
tune out TVBy Treena Shapiro
tshapiro@starbulletin.com"I turned it off. I turned my mind off," said Lee, an Oahu resident whose son-in-law Michael Collins was killed in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center. "It's just one of those things. I just didn't want to listen to it."
Nationwide, broadcasts of the videotape that government officials called evidence of bin Laden's guilt in the Sept. 11 attacks provoked a range of feelings -- from anger and disgust to fear of reciprocal attacks against American Muslims.
But some relatives of Hawaii victims killed in the attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania shut themselves off from television coverage of the video.
Like Lee, Ian Pescaia of Kailua said he had no interest in seeing the tape, adding that he never doubted bin Laden's connection.
"I just haven't been watching it. I don't really care to watch it," said Pescaia, whose wife, Christine Snyder, was killed aboard United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania. "(It) can't really change anything, you know?"
Laura Brough, whose mother, Georgine Rose Corrigan of Hawaii Kai, also was aboard Flight 93, has been trying to avoid the news in general, a family spokeswoman said.
"She has purposely weaned herself of watching the news and has literally stopped tracking it," said Elizabeth Reilly, adding that Brough has been trying to keep her spirits up for her children's sake during the holiday season. "She has to maintain some kind of normal balance."
Star-Bulletin reporter B.J. Reyes contributed to this story.